Talk:Ephraim and Dot (episode)
Canon? Satirical Tribute? Okay... I realize that Star Trek canon is defined as anything appearing onscreen in a television episode or movie, but we're going to have to make a new classification for this one. Much like the Tribbles commercial from "The Trouble with Edward", much of this animated Short Trek is out-of-universe. It will be impossible to set this within the timeframe of The Original Series because it uses clips and situations from multiple episodes set in different years within canon. I think we're going to need a new category of canon for these types of shorts that are clearly designed as "fan service" or "love letters to Star Trek". May I be the first to label this new classification of canon as a satirical tribute? Madnana42 (talk) 19:10, December 12, 2019 (UTC)NoMad : What makes it out of universe? -- Alan (talk) 19:45, December 12, 2019 (UTC) ::I think what he is referring to is the fact that it makes it seem like the scenes that in actuality took place over several years took place in a few minutes. I don't see the problem with that though, as montages are often shown depicting scenes over long periods in a short time. No big deal. The Tardigrade and Dot obviously had their Tom and Jerry-like conflict over a long period of time. We just saw the condensed version of the story. ::However there were a number of things that didn't make sense about the episode, such as the design of the Enterprise and how could no one notice those eggs, especially after the 2270s refit. It's possible that the eggs were phased out of normal spacetime in the mycelial network or whatever so it doesn't matter besides the overall tone is intentionally silly and cartoony so I don't think that's relevant. I think it could easily fit into the universe of Star Trek. ::The only thing I have to question about this episode was whether it was actually supposed to be real or not. After all it started out as a Starfleet Science "Animal Planet" type of documentary. Are we sure that this wasn't just some animated film that people of the Star Trek universe could watch on their holoscreens or something? ::It seems like it could have just as easily been a video that some elementary or middle school students might have watched in school to turn them on to interest in joining Starfleet Academy when they get old enough. Thoughts? ::-- Noah Tall (talk) 09:01, December 13, 2019 (UTC) :::The way the short began, it brought back memories for me of the show , hosted by Leonard Nimoy, from the 1970s. It was less of a documentary, and more of a sensational taling of a subject, such as Bigfoot. -- Memphis77 (talk) 13:22, December 13, 2019 (UTC) ::Right, that's actually what I meant. Not a documentary, but a fictionalized story about tardigrades and their adventures in space. ::-- Noah Tall (talk) 14:13, December 13, 2019 (UTC) :::YMMV - Trekcore describes this as a parody of a nature documentary. --Memphis77 (talk) 21:13, December 13, 2019 (UTC) ::::Funny thing is several reviews consider the episode canon, including Trekweb, Trekmovie, and SYFY.com... They go through explanations of how it might work. LMAO. The most elaborate explanation being on SYFY.com's article.... Generally the gist is that the episode is from Tardigrade's perspective, and it's moving through non-linear time and space to different eras of the ship, all the way to Star Trek VI, and back to Star Trek III, and places in between. Doesn't explain the wrong 'warp core' or the ship looking like Discoverse version of the ship, when it should have looked like the TOS style ship. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/uss-enterprise-timeline-short-treks-ephraim-and-dot ::::Baggins (talk) 15:45, December 15, 2019 (UTC) :::I am reminded of the quote from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, when there was a discussion about time travel, and we are told not to worry about it and just to enjoy ourselves.--Memphis77 (talk) 17:56, December 15, 2019 (UTC) :::::-- It couldn't be a "real" documentary or satire within the Trek universe because everyone who had knowledge of the mycelial network vowed never to reveal its existence at the end of the "Such Sweet Sorrow". 23:07, December 15, 2019 (UTC) ::::::@Memphis, That's more of an attitude than a workable content policy though, and it's the latter we're looking for here. I'm still processing the whole thing but I gotta say, where the tribbles cereal commercial was still perfectly rationalizable to me, this episode has firmly crossed over into breaking my brain territory. -- Capricorn (talk) 03:33, December 16, 2019 (UTC) :::Looking for a content policy, I would say this is a fictional account of a mother Tardigrade with a strong maternal instinct made for the children of Federation citizens by Starfleet Science. This agency incorporated historical facts from the legendary adventures of a famous starship, while not being totally accurate to those facts as that was not the aim.--Memphis77 (talk) 06:33, December 16, 2019 (UTC) ::::::That's very interesting, because while people are rationalizing that it must be fictionalized here, everyone adding information seems to be treating it as straight fact. (and all the while the supposed fictional film remains a redlink) This urgently needs to be decided upon, one way or the other. -- Capricorn (talk) 11:52, December 16, 2019 (UTC) ::::It's also worth noting if you examine each of the classic scenes being reinterpreted. That hallways, the sickbay, etc, all look like Disco-verse version of Enterprise (lots of windows, trapezoidal/hexagonal hallways, blue sickbay beds instead of red). Sulu scene he's attacking two people with completely different uniforms in yet another one of those disco-stye hallways with lots of windows (no windows in the original TOS "rectangcular/square" hallways). ::::While they did portray the TOS style warp core, that warp core should have been replaced in the TMP refit, but its there throughout the entire time... So from that stand point this whole episode either is non-canon, or it exists in an alternate "Disco-verse" (one in which "Burnham" had survived saved by her mother, rather than ones where she didn't exist, as surmised in Season 2)... ::::Baggins (talk) 12:39, December 16, 2019 (UTC) :::::::[[MA:RETCON|"To the greatest extent possible valid resources should be construed so as not to be in conflict"]] :::::::You guys really need to get out of your own way. This doesn't require any change to policy, it just requires you all to actually follow it as written. We're not here to tell a story, so stop trying to, and just report the facts. A documentary style film was presented, some things happened in it, and that is all we have to report. You don't have to rationalize how a doc could be made about a secret subject, or why space and time are very fluid here, just report what happened. A part of the warp core being the same pre and post refit isn't any more universe breaking than a 1 to 1 scale balloon of the ship. The mislabeled "A" isn't any worse than the deck 72 label, and minor differences don't make things "non-canon". Since our own page on s flat out says they are multi-dimensional, why would minor differences even be a problem? If you all are this far past the transwarp threshold over these shorts, you're going to have a bad time when the full length cartoons start. - 21:26, December 16, 2019 (UTC) ::::::I guess I was more or less assuming we'd treat Lower Decks as separate from normal continuity to be honest. I don't mind animation, but a comedic series? There's no way that's not gonna badly fuck up every bit of lore it touches. The whole point of sitcom is to take existing things and turn them into a joke. -- Capricorn (talk) 22:45, December 16, 2019 (UTC) :::::::You shouldn't assume. LD is going to be just as much "canon" as TOS, so I would start practicing at not taking the content literally. A joke may take a thing to the extreme, but the core concept of any good joke is a "truth" and some internal logic. Considering how much internal logic has been lacking for the live action series, I think we're actually going to get more and better lore than we are right now. Tom Servo's Used Robots is the best place on the Promenade for used robot parts after all. - 23:08, December 16, 2019 (UTC) ::::::::The creator of Lower Decks says: }} ::::::::Comedic and canonical are not mutually exclusive. We'd better get over any feeling that they are before LD airs. ::::::::Back on the topic of this episode, despite the "Starfleet Science" framing device, I think we need to take it as a presentation of something that "happened", as much as the events of any Star Trek episode "happened" — unless one of the writers or the director says that the black-and-white, scratchy film was meant to indicate that this was meant to be a nature documentary, or something similar. The presentation in the episode proper is at best ambiguous, so I think it would be dangerous for us to say definitively that we're not treating it as something "real". —Josiah Rowe (talk) 03:09, December 17, 2019 (UTC) :::I am hesitant to accept Ephraim and Dot as a factual telling. Just because it is described by some as a documentary does not lead me to the same conclusion. We have shows in the real world, like Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, which is labeled as a deocumentary, which are largely either fictional or pseudoscience.--Memphis77 (talk) 05:47, December 17, 2019 (UTC) Jenette Goldstein credit Jenette Goldstein voiced the Enterprise computer in , but in this short the computer has only one line ("self-destruct sequence completed and engaged"), whereas Dot has several ("intruder", "live long and prosper", "Searching: Identified: Tardigrade eggs"). Do we know whether Goldstein voiced the computer again, or Dot, or both? —Josiah Rowe (talk) 05:32, December 13, 2019 (UTC) :We don't know for sure, and neither do we know for sure what role Kirk Thatcher voiced. My assumption was that Thatcher voiced Dot, and Goldstein reprised her computer voice role. Both are assumptions, though. All we know for sure is that Thatcher voiced something and Goldstein voiced something else. -- Renegade54 (talk) 14:46, December 13, 2019 (UTC)